Aboriginal Convicts

The little known history of the estimated 130 Aboriginal convicts, transported to and within Australia's penal system. Among them were Australian Aboriginal warriors, Maori warriors, and Khosian convicts transported from the Cape Colony.

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Comments (4)

DrGideonPolya :

10 Oct 2012 9:16:55am

A very interesting interview about an important but well-hidden part of Australasian history that still resonates today in Australia and New Zealand.

However "convicts" is an arguable semantic sub-set of "prisoners" and the last surviving Tasmanian "full-blood" aborigines were incarcerated on Flinders Island and thence at Oyster Cove south of Hobart. The very last, Truganini, died in 1876 and her bones were buried in the old Hobart Women's Prison (in which I used to play as a child) before being put on display in the Hobart Museum. Truganini, another female and 2 male companions were imprisoned in NSW and charged with murder of a European, the men being hanged and the women returned to Tasmania (see "Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History" now available for free perusal on the Web).

Of course the circa 100,000 Aboriginal Stolen Children were prisoners, as are the thousands of refugees (many of them children) imprisoned in remote concentration camps today in PC racist, neoliberal Australia. In 2008 over 28% of Australia's prison population was Aboriginal although Aborigines comprise only 2.3% of the Australian population.

HistoryManN :

10 Oct 2012 2:44:25pm

I agree the interview was very interesting, and the topic certainly has contemporary resonances.

However, let's clarify the 'semantics'. Rather than being a subset of 'prisoner', the term 'convict' denotes a particular status broader than 'prisoner'. In this context, it is in fact more likely that the term 'prisoner' is the subset, particularly as the new model prison post-dates the earliest convicts, including some of the Aboriginal convicts covered in this monograph.

So too with the Aboriginal Tasmanians the terminology matters. You are gaoled whilst awaiting trial, imprisoned or executed after conviction - gaol and prison are different things. And, what makes the Flinders Island detention remarkable it is not incarceration in a strictly legal sense. But then we have all heard that story many times before. I wonder sometimes if the term 'history repeats itself' refers not to cyclical events, but the repetition of the telling by historians. Thank goodness some historians can break that mould.

tawatja :

10 Oct 2012 11:01:37pm

On a minor point - Trucanini and the other Tasmanian Aborigines were imprisoned in Melbourne, not Sydney. The two men hung were the first public hangings in the colony. Read Jan Roberts' 'Jack of Cape Grim' for a more complete account.

In terms that are more familiar today (ie from the Geneva Convention) the Aborigines kept at Wybalenna are probably best referred to as 'internees' - detained for military or political reasons to assist in establishing security during or after a war. The colony of Van Dieman's Land had been under marital law and the Governor authorised this resettlement and internment for both the safety of the Aborigines and for the safety of colonists. A more cynical view would have it that this was also a death camp. There were no gas chambers or firing squads, but it was never envisaged that the people being held there were ever going to be released. Most of the nearly 300 died there. Only 67 remained when Queen Victoria ordered that the camp be closed due to the treatment of the people being held.

tawatja :

10 Oct 2012 11:02:31pm

On a minor point - Trucanini and the other Tasmanian Aborigines were imprisoned in Melbourne, not Sydney. The two men hung were the first public hangings in the colony. Read Jan Roberts' 'Jack of Cape Grim' for a more complete account.